Sitting in the lounge at SpringHouse Ministry Center (a venue I was familiar with from
this year's Fringe), waiting to see
Theatre Coup d'Etat's new adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone, I read the
Wikipedia plot summary, as I often do before I see a really old play. The story of the sister who is condemned to death for giving her brother a proper burial started to sound familiar to me, and I realized I had seen it before, only it was called
Burial at Thebes, and it was a sort of gospel retelling by Irish poet Seamus Haeney. Sophocles' trilogy of this ancient doomed family begins with
Oedipus the King (you know Oedipus, the guy who was cursed by the gods to kill his father and marry his mother), continues with
Oedipus at Colonus (which also has a gospel retelling called
Gospel of Colonus), and ends with the story of Antigone, Oedipus' daughter. Also related is Aeschylus'
Seven Against Thebes, which tells the story of Antigone's two brothers who fought over control of Thebes after their father's death (which I experienced as a "hip-hop musical comedy-tragedy in Ten Thousand Things'
The Seven). All of this preamble is just to say I was more familiar with the world of Antigone than I thought, and felt comfortable jumping right into this intense 90-minute adaptation. It's a story, or rather a piece of a story, that's been told many many times over the last few millennia. But a story that's still worth hearing, especially this version, which focuses on a strong female heroine standing up for her family and doing what she believes is right, no matter the consequences.
